


Five Things Science Taught Him (And One Thing It Was Wrong About)

by inimitablesatirist (orphan_account)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: 5 + 1 Things, Angst, Carlos-centric, Episode: e049 Old Oak Doors Part B, Gen, M/M, SCIENCE!, The Writing is a bit Weird on this, and not science, but low-key, goes through to Old Oak Doors Part B, has cecilos but it's not completely ship-centric, it's Carlos's life, oh yeah and probably canonical inaccuracy, references to One Year Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7646272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/inimitablesatirist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Science has been a constant in Carlos's life. </p><p>Science is always right; he can count on it. </p><p>And yet... there's always an exception. Always a loophole. And in Night Vale, those are more common than normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things Science Taught Him (And One Thing It Was Wrong About)

**Author's Note:**

> so... writing for a new fandom! This is weird. 
> 
> The writing is a bit strange on this as I try to capture the spirit of Night Vale, so pardon that. Anyways, I really hope you all like this! It should be good!

i. 

A child is on his back on the grass looking up, eyes wide and searching and curious. He is looking for something. For what, he isn’t sure yet, but sometimes that’s part of it all. Something interesting, perhaps, something new. 

It’s not long before something flits across his vision, and he rockets to his feet a little too fast, hands outstretched to catch it as it falls. He looks down, a frown on his face. A butterfly is cradled in his hand. He’s not sure what kind- _swallowtail,_ he thinks, attaching a word he’s heard once from someone older than him, mentioned possibly in reference to a butterfly, to the bug squirming weakly in his hand. The little boy is right, but he doesn’t know it. 

Closer observation shows that it’s broken; its right wing is twisted up painfully, and the child’s stomach wrenches in response. _Can I save it?_ he wonders, disproportionate panic welling up inside of him. He looks down at it and is unsure of himself, not for the first time. And so, instinctively, he does what every helpless child does when they are faced with a problem they can’t fix: he runs to his parents. 

He bursts into the house, loosely holding the butterfly in his hands for fear of damaging the small creature further. “Mama!” he shouts, and his brother pauses on his way out the door, irritation on his teenaged face, though the little boy doesn’t quite recognize it yet. “What do I do?” His words are directed at his older brother that time. 

With a disgruntled sigh, him brother makes his way over to him and peers into his outstretched hand, then his panicked eyes. “Why do you even care so much?” he snaps, half anger, half sigh, and the boy recoils, eyes narrowing in defense. 

“I want to save it!” the child says angrily, getting furious when he follows the teenager’s longing gaze to where the older boy’s friends wait and realizing why his brother will not help him.

The older of the two brothers spins, enraged, on the way out the door. “It can’t be saved! Some things just can’t, Carlos, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you become-” his face twists in a scornful sneer- “a scientist, or whatever other useless thing you want to be.” Carlos is used to this, enough to keep him from crying but not enough to keep him from caring. He retreats to his room and combs through the simple science books his mother had bought him upon his begging, and he learns about how short a butterfly’s lifespan is, and how they change and become more beautiful as their life goes forward (he already knew that, but he gains solace in the fact by looking at the ugly bug-things evolving into so many different types of handsome creatures, into flying explosions of color and light).

And that night he starts a list, because he _will_ become a scientist, and he _will not_ be useless, if it’s the last thing he does. Carlos has plans to blow them all away. It is titled this: “Lessons”. It sounds simple, and a little poetic, at least to his seven-year-old brain. He starts at number one and writes “Creatures change in many ways over their lifetimes”, and he doesn’t understand it yet, but that’s poetic even if nothing else is (he meant it literally at the time). And it is this moment, as his pen scratches unsteadily across the paper, that he truly decides to trust science and see what results that may yield.

ii. 

A child, now older, starting seventh grade, views the hallways with trepidation. Briefly, he glances down at the tattered, wrinkled schedule in his hands, crumpled and worn from the many times he’d folded and unfolded it over the past couple weeks. If nothing else, he’s at least got Biology as his last class of the day. Something to look forward to. And if things are going to go as stereotypically as they do in the movies, he’ll probably need the comfort of science to give him the will to live.

The first day of middle school, predictably, goes about as stereotypically as possible (mentally, Carlos is already planning to see if there are any stats about the likelihood of this happening), and by the time his science class rolls around he’s in desperate need of it. He was treated like a ghost by the kids, like an idiot by the teachers, and like a delinquent by the hall monitors, and science has always been an outlet for him in some weird way he hasn’t bothered to look into yet. A kid he recognizes from his History class sneers at him, and Carlos ducks his head down to avoid his gaze. _This place is like one massive wolf pack, and it would seem that I haven’t gained their approval._ He’s just hoping not to be at the bottom of the totem pole, though the way he’s headed, that’s probably what’s going to happen. 

To say the very least, he’s more than happy to shove open the door to the Bio room. He can’t help but inhale deeply- the air isn’t fresh, necessarily, but it smells different from the rest of the school. Probably the formaldehyde, or whatever, but that’s the least of Carlos’s concerns, honestly. A few of the kids give him weird looks, but he doesn’t care much about that, either. He takes a quick look at the seating chart and flops down on one of the stools, wincing as it squeaks rustily beneath him. 

The teacher doesn’t wait- as soon as the bell rings, she launches into a rapid-fire introduction and then asks a question so quickly Carlos barely has enough time to legitimately tune back in. “Alright, who’s going to list off all of the human body systems that keep us all functioning?” Carlos almost laughs at the simplicity; he’s had that memorized since he was about eight. His hand shoots into the air, joined by…. Literally no one else’s. 

He lets it hover there uncertainly as the teacher surveys the class and sighs. “Ma’am?” he asks, because he wasn’t listening when she gave her name, and her eyes finally lock onto him completely. She jerks her head affirmatively, and he answers the question easily. 

“The circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, exocrine system, immune system, muscular system, nervous system, renal system, reproductive system, and respiratory system.” 

The teacher blinks for a moment, and the class is silent around him. Carlos realizes belatedly that the kid next to him is the same one who sneered at him in the hall, and is currently staring at him like he had just sprouted antlers (he’ll realize the irony of that statement far later in life when it actually happens, but that’s another story). 

“Correct,” the teacher says hurriedly like she realizes the pause went on too long, and that it’s very likely that Carlos is now doomed socially. “That was the correct answer, Mr. ….?” 

“I’m Carlos,” he says quietly, and the teacher nods. 

“Carlos,” she echoes, and moves on. 

He is later shoved into a locker, and he’s not at all surprised, though vaguely traumatized. He knows enough about psychology to be certain that it’s jealousy and a conflict of values that urges the bullies on. It still is incredibly unpleasant, and he holds back tears on the walk back from school.

At home, he gets an annoyed “pep” talk from his father (who somehow found out about the whole fiasco? Carlos had long since learned not to question it) about strength and acceptance by other people through strength, and, in short, a bunch of generally degrading bullshit about what it means to be a man. 

He consoles himself by sneaking onto the computer later that night and looking up nature documentaries about the lives of wolves, and he learns this: lone wolves driven out of their packs sometimes, after finding their own territory, start packs of their own and lead them. Carlos smiles at the idea of striking out on his own and being a leader. Biology, he decides, is a good branch of science (he thinks this about all branches of science, but on this particular night, biology is what has taught him something). The list is in his head now. It has grown too long for paper.

(He still feels like that damned broken butterfly.)

iii. 

In high school, he continues to be the class outcast. It feels like a bad teen movie, him being the loner nerd, but at the same time it’s kind of gratifying, because as bad teen movies predicted so accurately, he finds other loner nerds, and together they become less loner nerds and more like group nerds. It hadn’t been his plan to be a cliche, but it’s a happy cliche. 

AP classes are hard. That’s the first thing he really learns in high school (the second is that college is way too close for him to fathom, but he tries not to think about that). Carlos naturally finds people like himself in those classes, driven kids who want to be something and are willing to work for it, kids who will either become something great or drunken wrecks living out of their car because they _failed._ He tries not to think about that either. 

Carlos is a man who always knew what he wanted to become. He knew what he was since he was seven and found that butterfly he couldn’t save. He wanted to save people, and prevent them from having to be saved in the first place. As scientifically as possible.

He also already hates the real world, or at least the projection of the real world shown to him by his experiences. He is hoping he could change that.

It’s these thoughts that run through his head as he races through the empty hallways. He’s late for class, and he’d seen it coming, too- the trend of getting shoved into his locker had continued throughout high school, and honestly it’s more of nuisance than an awful event that will be lodged in his psyche forever (Carlos knows, at this point, enough about the human brain to be pretty sure that that’s not true, that he will most definitely be psychologically damaged by this, but he shoves that certainty away). Most of the time, he operates under the pretense that it’s not too bad. Except that this time there are consequences. 

So instead of taking a right at the next turn, he goes left, praying to anyone out there that a hall monitor won’t stumble upon him and cause a misunderstanding. Scientifically, he knows that his directionless thoughts have no bearing on the statistics governing whether or not he either literally or figuratively runs into someone, but it’s a nice idea, anyway. Carlos is also aware that had he actually taken that right turn, there would have been a relatively high chance of him making it to class on time. _Maybe I am cracking under the pressure like they say,_ he thinks, a weary smile making its way across his face as he skids to a stop outside the counselor’s office. He’s not really sure this is the best place to go, but knocks on the door anyway. 

A vaguely surprised adult face meets him as the door cracks open, and he shifts from foot to foot a little guiltily. 

“Hello, sir. I was shoved into a locker earlier, and it’s made me late for class,” Carlos states, putting on his best AP-student-good-kid smile. The late bell rings behind him as if in punctuation.

The counselor relaxes a little bit at the smile, probably subconsciously, even as he sighs and puts a hand over his face in exhaustion. “Alright. Feel free to come in, then.” A pause as Carlos enters the office and sits down. “So, what do you want me to do about it?” For a moment, the teenager is disappointed- the kid in him had expected a professional response, but then the teenager is back and it’s fine, all fine. 

“I dunno. A late pass would be nice, and if you could the kid detention- he’s been doing this since middle school, by the way- that’d be great, too.” He’s being completely sincere, as he always is, but the counselor’s eyes harden a little bit. 

“Who are you, kid?” 

“Carlos, sir. There’s only one in the school. And the kid’s name is Kyle Aberdeen.” Small town benefits; the school only has about 1,000 kids meaning he doesn’t often have to give his full name, which is a bit of a mouthful anyway (and for whatever reason, people have just been using “The Science Kid” as his surname, and he’s really not arguing because that’s pretty on the nose).

The counselor nods tiredly. “Great. Great, I can do that. Now, can you please leave? I’ve got work to do.” 

Carlos leaves.

The rest of the school day passes without incident, except that he has Science Club so he has to stay after school. There’s an ominous feeling churning deep in his gut, to the point where he can barely even focus on the chemical reaction they’re creating (highly toxic, and if anything goes wrong the blast will be too large and annihilate the room. Ah, public high school), which is the first warning for his friends. Their second is when Carlos leaves early, eyes darting from side to side nervously. None follow. 

The teenager walks home as fast as he can. He’s not fast enough. 

He doesn’t even register there’s someone following him through the twisting alleys (that lack of instinct gets trained out of him later) until Kyle is right behind him, and at that point the hulking boy has already grabbed the back of his shirt and lifted him into the air. Carlos shouts furiously to mask the fear and twists around wildly. He hadn’t been scared before- getting shoved into lockers is harassment, but no major thing. Mostly it’s just the immediate pain of falling against a hard surface without expecting it, then just sitting in a dark space til someone lets you out (the longest he’s waited is about three minutes- at this point his friends know to check on him). He’s scared now as he lashes out at Kyle’s face. Misses. 

Kyle leers up at him. “So, you’re the one who threw me in detention. I normally wouldn’t mind, shrimp, but I had plans today, ya know?” He grins wider. “So, ya know, I’ll ruin yours.” He throws Carlos back onto the hard pavement- it had been a struggle holding up even that scrawny of a kid for a prolonged period of time because he’s a bully, not a bodybuilder- and advances on him as he scrambles to his feet. Carlos hasn’t quite hit his high school growth spurt yet, and being halfway through his junior year, he doubts he ever will. His hands scrape against the rough, gravelly pavement, and pain jolts inside him, but he pushes it aside as he looks up at Kyle. _Don’t break. Don’t break. Be logical, be scientific. He wouldn’t risk doing anything truly awful to you; he’s smarter than that._

Carlos glares up into Kyle’s eyes and refuses to waver. Looking away is a sign of weakness regardless of species, he knows. He’s still looking as the fist hits him hard in the stomach, and he can’t inhale as he collapses to the ground, skidding backwards against the asphalt, blood welling on his palms as he tries to slow his velocity with his hands. He forces himself not to panic, and when the spots finally clear from his eyes and his lungs work again, Kyle is still standing there, fists clenched, waiting for him to stand again. There’s that kind of sadistic light in his eyes that Carlos has seen only the eyes of movie villains. 

“Well? Are you going to fight back?” Kyle sneers. Carlos tries not to be provoked, but anger is stirring inside him. “Or are you going to run?” He inhales sharp and fast and races at him, and he wishes he knew how to fight. Again Kyle strikes him, this time to the jaw (the only redeemable part of him, he thinks, despite what the very few others who compliment him say) and again he falls back, but this time he gets to his feet quicker, although tears are welling in his eyes. On one takedown, his ankle twists painfully and swells almost immediately. He finally gets a blow in to Kyle’s side, but by then it’s pointless; he’s on the ground getting pummeled and it’s all he can do to shield his head. 

When it’s all over, and Carlos left in the alley in the late afternoon, bruised and exhausted and sobbing, knees curled up to his chest, all he can think is It wasn’t supposed to be like this. His first fight should have ended with him walking away the winner. It should have been hard, but ultimately have him as the prevailer. He was supposed to fight hard and have that yield results. He’d fought before, of course with his brother, and he’d inexplicably won, but he didn’t count that because it was just his brother, even though the fight was definitely real enough. He should have known, after all these years of science and lessons learned the hard way: Past performance is not an indicator of future results. 

Carlos grimaces and gets to his feet. He limps home. 

He looks up the stats. A twisted ankle at his level of injury will take 4-6 weeks to heal; he had hardly made it home, barely putting weight on his injured foot. 

The internet is correct. But even though the beating is over, and that should have ended the bullying, he is still shoved into lockers. Like a reminder. _Matter cannot be created or destroyed,_ he says to himself, trapped in a hard metal cage, as he has been for the past half hour. _So, I cannot, scientifically, be destroyed._ Carlos calms his heartbeat, and he waits. He is set free. 

iv. 

The first thing he learns about college is this: it’s harder than AP classes. Especially since he got accepted into The University of What It Is.

Also, he knows far less about science than he thought. 

Carlos easily endears himself to his professors and even, for the most part, his classmates. It’s relieving to be in a place where intellect doesn’t make you a target for once. He takes on any research grant or internship he can shoulder his way into and is making his way through school incredibly quickly (his major is Science. He couldn’t pick anything specific. Also, he still isn’t quite convinced that he knows a whole lot about the subject). College is, admittedly, a bit of a pain in the ass, but he makes friends that will probably prove to be influential people. And he did finally make it through puberty out alive, and actually looking a lot better than he did on the way in. He’s not sure whether to be annoyed or amused by the amount of men and women practically throwing themselves at him every time he and his friends have a night out. He doesn’t really look in the mirror much, but his best friend said he’d come in looking like a scrawny stray cat, and then halfway through his second year he suddenly became (and we’re quoting here) a “sex god”, even though he literally hadn’t dated much less had sex with a single soul to that date.

So in short, for the most part he ignores his sudden multitude of suitors, and then in his second to last year at university, he meets a guy. 

His name is Eric. 

They hit it off immediately, because he seems kind and smart and conventionally attractive, and through one way or another they end up in a relationship. It’s not really too shocking to anyone, and Carlos is happy with Eric. It’s nice, having a constant in his life that isn’t an abstract idea that he has to endlessly pursue (like, say, science, for instance). 

A year or so into the relationship, Carlos wakes up alone, and he’s not worried. They’d moved into an apartment together, yeah, but Eric has morning classes. So the scientist grumbles sleepily, squints his eyes against the pale sunlight seeping in through the blinds, and rolls gracelessly out of bed. He’s exhausted, and today’s plans studying for the ultimate finals, and working on that end of year project. In short, the two things that have his future hanging in the balance. He groans and considers just crawling back into bed and pretending reality doesn’t exist (incidentally, he finds concrete proof about that later in life, though he knows no one else would believe him), but it’s a nice day, and he’s hungry, and he’s terrified of the future and apathy. 

He makes himself breakfast, and then just sits at the table, staring listlessly into the grain of the fake wood. There’s something wrong, but scientifically, there should be nothing wrong: he’s in a good relationship, his scholarly pursuits are going along as well as they can be, and he’s not broke or starving or unhealthy. Carlos is basically living the college dream (the dream of college students, that is. People not actually in college have college dreams like road trips, freedom, and parties). So why is he feeling anything less? 

The man sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, tearing his gaze from the table and pushing away his chair. “I’m going to go look for Eric,” Carlos says aloud to no one, maybe just to prove that he’s there. 

He doesn’t find Eric, and ends up just going to class instead of worrying about it. He can’t bring himself to worry- he’s emotionally exhausted, and he doesn’t even know why. 

Later that night, he comes home, and Eric and some man he doesn’t recognize are having sex on Carlos’s bed. For a moment he stands there, and then he turns and walks away. After that, he hardly leaves the library, and when he does, he sleeps in his friend’s apartment. When they finally get around to talking, the breakup is ugly, and Carlos just retreats further into himself. Healing comes slow. He knows about damage to the human psyche, though he didn’t focus much about it when he was studying, so he tells himself not to be worried.

Carlos also tells himself, _Love is simply a chemical._ He is not sure this is true. _Science proves this._ He was, in all likelihoods, not in love in the first place. The stats (though he’s not sure which ones) show this, and he trusts science only, anyways. His constant.

v. 

Somehow, Carlos pushes through the haze and graduates college. 

The first thing he does after that is turn right around and start searching for a research grant he can lead. He had, after all, graduated near the top of his class, with far too many honors, and the professors absolutely loved him for reasons he didn’t really understand (enough that he's considered a colleague to most of them), so it wasn’t exceptionally hard. 

He asks one of his friends to lobby with him, a man named Dave who’s always been a little weird and a little too smart for his own good, and pretty soon the executives sigh and mention offhand a little town in the desert that no one can seem to contact, and that science doesn’t seem to apply to. The idea intrigues Carlos for obvious reasons. A part of him is afraid and maybe even a little bit upset that this tiny place in the American southwest defies the foundation he sets his life upon. A part of him, equally sized, is excited at the prospect. His life has been predictable thus far, even the unpredictable. 

“Go to this town,” the nameless, faceless representative says in via email, “and observe.” 

Carlos gathers up a team and he goes. 

The group of scientists and prospective scientists pile into a van, Carlos in the front seat and Dave in the passenger seat and a group of people whose names Carlos hasn’t bothered to learn yet in the back. Somehow, this group of people hit it off immediately, introducing themselves shyly but with clinical, practiced precision. 

“I’m Carlos,” Carlos says, and there’s a lot he could add to that statement, like his last name or the fact that he wasn’t sure that he was really ready for this, but instead he just hesitates and nods firmly and repeats it, unsure of what else to say.

They nod in return, and exchange their names. He tries to remember them, but he’s having trouble remembering lots of things, so instead he turns back to the road. The scientists are out of the city that many of them have now spent years in, the road growing bumpier beneath the old wheels of the van. In the back, they have as much science equipment as they can cram in, but based on what Carlos has heard about this city, it’s probably not enough. 

The radio plays in the backdrop of his thoughts, some old country station that Dave had picked. He hated country, but what could he do about it? _Scientifically, many things,_ Carlos thinks, and smirks at his own mental joke. _Socially, however, very few._

The radio crackles with static. The road is dark and empty. The sun is setting, turning the sky a dark purple. It feels like the first few minutes of a horror movie, the single car on the empty road and the sudden crackle of static before the return to a bad station, the dying light. Carlos shudders. He does not believe in ghosts. Science proves that the very idea is ridiculous. He’d also watched far too many horror movies in his youth. 

A deep voice replaces the music, signal still humming with static. The sound is grainy as it hisses and crackles, but the scientists, now silent, can make out words: _The moon-_ static- _beautiful, and_ \--- distortion of sound before suddenly clear voice. All the scientists jump- _mysterious light pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome…. To Night Vale._

The sign is already behind them, and the scientists look between each other, unsettled. Carlos can feel a chill dancing up his spine, and he clenches his fingers on the wheel. 

And then- perhaps he drifted off? How dangerous- he was in a small town, driving through quiet streets, the radio playing and broadcasting that deep melodious voice. The scientists are silent, afraid to speak and disrupt to the strange quiet that has fallen over them. They pull to a stop outside a science lab (Carlos thinks that maybe the representative told him they had rented a lab for him to conduct his experiments, and that sounds about right in his mind so he says nothing), and hop out, clutching clipboards to their chests, eyes flitting around like scared animals.

The radio still plays, and it is light out. Some muddled thought in Carlos’s head says that the night was far shorter than it should have been, but he shoves it away. Science is waiting for him. 

That day, he holds a press conference, and afterwards he slips into the car that is now his car and the radio still plays. The Voice of Night Vale (as the radio host has been referred to) is speaking about the press conference he had literally just finished. The Voice compliments him frequently, offhandedly, and Carlos is thinking, _Okay, that’s alright, scientifically I'm sure it means nothing_ and then it says this: _...And I fell in love instantly._ He jumps in his seat, inadvertently jerking the wheel hard to the side and nearly hitting an old lady he’d crossed paths with earlier.

The scientist leaps from the car, body flooded with shame and embarrassment and something else he can’t quite place. “I’m so sorry!” he says to the woman, voice uneven with panic and humiliation. But she’s just smiling imperiously, and extends a hand to Carlos. 

“I’m Old Woman Josie,” she says, like the title is a part of her name. Carlos will learn, later, about titles and what they mean here. 

“Carlos,” he says in return and shakes her hand. 

Old Woman Josie nods. “I know.” 

Carlos is back in his car, and he’s not sure how he got there. With shaking hands, he tries to turn off the radio, and when that fails, change stations, but nothing works; the dial is broken, so instead he sits in his car in the middle of the road and stares at the radio, looking but not really seeing, listening but not really hearing. 

The year progresses, in one way or another, but time is weird here, so it could have been a week for all he knows. There’s something about this place that changes him. Carlos can feel his past fading away from him like cloth succumbing to overexposure, paling and thinning and tearing until it dissolves and floats away. He feels his spine straightening, his smile growing brighter, his confidence flaring. He can feel himself turning into a lighter man, a less scared man, one who can grin and visit the cat in the men’s bathroom at the radio station, one who can study things he doesn’t understand and that science itself doesn’t understand. Granted, it’s still a difficult place to be- and even that’s an understatement.

It’s tense, really tense, living here, and it’s not even the frequent devastation that everyone takes in stride, or even the confusing things that science doesn’t seem to apply to; it’s more the fact that most of his survival in this town is based off of the fact that the Voice (whose name is actually Cecil; a strangely common name for such a…. Well.) seems to be attached to him. Which is a good thing, sure, but it’s weird when he tunes in to the radio and the all-powerful seemingly omniscient possibly immortal Voice of Night Vale is gushing about whatever Carlos had been doing that day and the state of his hair. The citizens of Night Vale seemed to like him because their Voice did, but there was also a warning with it, as if to say: _Do not break our Voice’s heart. You are not good enough for him, but he loves you._

Carlos isn’t sure about the “love” part of it. He’s studied this, back in his free time when he still had non-warped free time; he knows about infatuation versus love, et cetera. He’s well aware that surely, _surely,_ Cecil isn’t in love with him, because that would be ridiculous. 

Which is why it’s so shocking when, as he’s bleeding out, he looks at the drab, crumbling ceiling of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, and the only thought in his mind is _Cecil._ So when he’s somehow alive at the end of it all, he texts Cecil to meet him in the parking lot of the Arby’s. _It’s different than Eric,_ he realizes as he sits on the hood of his car and he waits. _It felt different, somehow, than what this is._ Because the thing about love is this: we can know the chemicals that are involved in its creation. On the outside, we can sometimes even know what love looks like. But we will never know exactly how it feels. Existence is strange, and the existence or lack of which of love is no different. Science has proven this. 

Together, he and Cecil watch the lights, and Carlos thinks, _Maybe this is what it’s supposed to be._

 

(and i.)

The sun is hot in this desert otherworld. 

That shouldn’t be anything new to Carlos, of course- all things considered, it even shouldn’t be worthy of his notice, regardless of the fact that he’s wearing one of his thicker his lab coats- but the heat is different, so he takes a moment to consider it before dismissing the fact like he does a lot more often now (it’s not hot, but it is; inside he’s cold, but outside he’s hot, like working out in cold weather but reversed). 

Plus, his arms hurt from holding the scientific device, which, by the way, is not an umbrella (it’s totally an umbrella. A fancy umbrella, certainly, refurbished a bit to make it look like something distinctly not-umbrella like, but it’s an umbrella). To be completely honest, he’s not even sure why he’s even bothering, seeing as there are way too many old oak doors in this seemingly endless otherworld. Carlos gets lots of moments like that, but they’ve been more frequent over the last two years, give or take a decade. _Time is weird in Night Vale,_ he says to himself, smirking a little like that statement is a novelty. He’s known this for a while. 

Dana had crossed back through the doors a while ago, smiling blissfully at the prospect of being reunited with her mother and brother and hometown. Probably, Carlos will be doing the same too. Nothing is a guarantee, especially in Night Vale. It’s another fact he knows all too well. He studies, from a distance, the masked armies and the angels as they swarm back and forth. Somewhere, far away, there is a revolt being led against the evil StrexCorp. He allows himself a smile at the idea, and tries, for a moment, to fiddle with the portable radio he’d bought soon after entering Night Vale (or maybe it wasn’t soon after he entered Night Vale, but he tried not to consider time too much in relation to the town or he’d give himself a headache), but it just fizzles uselessly, knocked out by that white light flooding through the doors. He grimaces and holds the scientific umbrella device higher up. He’ll have to fix that radio later; he’s not sure if he could stand missing one of Cecil’s shows. Carlos isn’t sure what to do- he’s tried so damn hard to get these doors to close. He’s slaved for hours trying to figure it out, but he just can’t-- 

Suddenly, an idea hits him, hope striking him for the first time, and he straightens up, craning his neck to look around, and then he sees it- an angel (or a... not-angel. Carlos still isn’t sure exactly what he’s allowed to call them). _Maybe the doors won’t close until we’re all back where we belong?_ he asks himself, allowing himself to believe it for a second. 

He clears his throat and jogs away from the door. “Excuse me!” Carlos’s voice sounds weak compared to the deep, rumbling tones of the masked army, dry and muddled compared to the clear, singsongy tones of the Erikas. He flushes with embarrassment and repeats himself. “Excuse me, everyone? Could you all pay attention?” The masked army turns with perfect precision towards him, and the glowing blackness that he associates with angels’ eyes are directed at him. For a moment, Carlos isn’t sure what to say, so he coughs before hesitantly stating, “I have a theory.” He can’t help the pride in his voice- it’s become a habit of his at this point, a habit he didn’t have before Night Vale. 

He must have been silent for too long, though, because one of the Erikas step forward and asks, “How can we help you?” Carlos flushes again and waves his hand. 

“I need all the angels- Erikas,” he amends, as if the government is watching him in a desert otherworld, “to cross through the old oak doors back into Night Vale.” They disappear as if they’d never been there, and Carlos blinks, surprised and feeling a little lonely and lost. The tall, dark figures had become a constant in his life- well, as constant as something can be Night Vale- and he’d hardly noticed. “And then,” he says, hardly missing a beat. “I need all the members of the masked army to return here.” The scientist doesn’t quite understand how they communicate, but the leader (or something, because he shouldn’t make assumptions) makes a deep thrumming noise he feels more than hears, and then the army is crashing through the doors. 

Finally, Carlos allows himself a full grin- the kind that Cecil would (and has) swoon about on the radio. He can go home now, he realizes gleefully. He can see Cecil again. 

The realization hits him hard- he hasn’t seen his boyfriend in weeks, not really, and they’d only talked via hologram. It hits him harder that he’d give anything, _anything,_ to have him back. Carlos can feel happiness spiraling up from somewhere inside him, and he allows the joy to overtake him as he races closer to the old oak door--- 

It slams shut. 

“What?” he croaks out, skidding to a halt and sending sand flying up around him. “What?” he repeats louder, recognizing the note of hysteria in his voice. The masked army stands apart from the scientist, unsure of how to react. Carlos takes a step back as it fades from existence, like some bad video editing effect. He feels nothing, and he feels fear. He feels a kaleidoscope of emotions, and he is terrified. 

_What does this mean?_

The scientist asks himself the question over and over, muttering it aloud, backing away from where the old oak door should have been but now inexplicably isn’t, until it turns into a shriek of “What do I _do?”_ to nothing and no one. The masked army watches, but does nothing. They know only war, and sometimes, perhaps, love. 

Carlos sits down on the sand, feeling utterly defeated. So he thinks about it. And he thinks, and he thinks, and this time the answer hits him not like a lightbulb turning on but like a sucker punch to the stomach, and it is this: Science does not believe he belongs in Night Vale. Science disregards semantics and logic and emotion. Carlos balls his hands up into fists. His fingers are shaking. 

_No,_ he says to himself, and he is hit with a barrage of emotions and memories: _him, running through the dark streets of Night Vale, but not because he is afraid. Him, stroking Khoshekh as the cat undulates beneath his fingers; dark, soft fur beneath his hands. Sunsets warping and distorting in his vision. Big Rico’s Pizza, a slice in his mouth. Liquids bubbling in his lab. Hot sun, beautiful moon, strange lights. Cecil’s voice, rumbling through the darkness. Cecil taking his hand. Cecil’s lips on his. A whisper, quiet in the night, spoken softly, with the slightest hint of fear: “I love you.”_

Science is _wrong._

With his shaking hands, he pulls out his phone and dials a number, a strange feeling in his chest. Bittersweet. Carlos knows where he belongs, now, and the universe disagrees.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully that was enjoyable, right? I love Carlos. So much. I'm planning on writing more about him and Cecil soon. Also, guys, that 12:37 episode? Creepy as hell. Please save me. Save them. I want these poor men to be happy.
> 
> At any rate, please drop me a comment if you liked this, and some kudos! I always appreciate constructive criticism and requests, so fire away! THANK YOU ALL FOR READING!


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